Monday 9 September 2013

How do you choose your books?

How do you choose what book to read next?

Now this is something that I started thinking about after an outing through a bookshop with my boyfriend. Both being lovers of books, we spent a long time walking among the bookshelves, pointing out books that were good and not so good. I found myself not only drawing on books that I had already read, or had waiting on my to-read pile, that I wanted to recommend to be read, but I kept pointing out books that were 'big' at the moment. I realised that I had built up a large amount of knowledge on the upcoming newest, hottest reads purely through twitter and blogging and this was how I choose a lot of my new reads.
This got me thinking, how do you choose your books? There are so many books out there - where to start?


I know alot of you are bloggers and get sent books from publishers to read and review before releases, but how else do you decide what books you want to read? Is it something that you pick up on just by personal choice browsing the bookshelves, or do you pcik up recommendations from somewhere?
I think word of mouth, personal recommendations is still my favourite way to find a book. I'm currently reading 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which is fanastic so far, but I never would've picked it so easily without being recommended it as a 'must-read'.
I find myself more and more, following all the publishing and blogger folk and pick up on what books they are talking about at the moment and investigate those further. The power of social media is that the more you see it being talked about, the more you (well I do anyway) want to see what all the fuss is about - when I walk into a bookshop next, it is these books I notice first.
But I also quite enjoy looking at the amazon bestsellers lists to see which books are topping the charts this week. Also I find that the Waterstones charts and books of the week are a great way to find new reads.

Do you do the same thing? Or do you find another way to choose some new books?


7 comments:

  1. I do get quite a few books from publishers to read, but because I’m a Portuguese blogger there are a lot of authors (new and old) that I know nothing about. So what I do, to pick a new read, is to go by the covers I feel more attracted too. If it’s from a genre that I’m currently into, then I probably won’t even read the book description… but if it is from some other literary genre, then I’ll read the first chapter or something like that.
    Since I also follow a few international blogs and Portuguese bloggers who read a lot in English, I do get a bit of information about foreign new books and that spices my curiosity up… now that I’m actually moving to the UK, I think my small literary world is gonna get overflow with incredible reading options.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I tend to pick books to read through one of three ways. The first is I have a list of authors whose past books I've read and loved, if they have a new one coming out it tends to end up of my to be read pile. The second is through the reviews of bloggers I know and follow. The third is through memes like Waiting on Wednesday and giveaways on Goodreads. WoW is a good way to find out what other bloggers are desperate to get their hands on, sometimes a year in advance. Of course, for all of these three options whether I actually read the book depends a great deal on if I think it looks and sounds interesting too. And I occasionally just go into bookstores and browse the shelves and pick things I'm drawn to.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This year I've been focusing on reading books that are more or less must reads such as the Vampire Academy series, Shatter Me series and books by Gayle Forman in combination with whatever ARCs I get approved for. Within that, I choose books to read based on my mood. This is a lot easier and I've read so many amazing books this way as I also get to catch up so win-win.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Now I usually choose books based on reviews or sometimes just from a synopsis, but before I started blogging I would most often choose books by browsing in shops and libraries - I like being able to pick up books and read a few pages.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I actually just tend to read whatever looks good to me (I'm not a blogger at all), however Goodreads has a very big influence on some of the books I read, and word of mouth. It all depends on whether it's something I'm interested in and since I'm very picky with what I read I tend not to listen to people's recommendations. It's the same with me for music though. I'm a very picky person :P

    ReplyDelete
  6. I suppose social media has made a big impact in the last few years in dictating what I read, also seeing books reviewed on the many book blogs I follow is great for recommendations, I check the kindle charts and pick up quite a few new books there and then I see goodreads recommendations, basically I spend quite a long time researching books on the internet.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have a few criteria... Which I then usually ignore!

    1) Does it need reviewed for NetGalley for an author request?
    2) Was it from a giveaway?
    3) Does it have a pretty cover? (Yes, I'm that shallow :/ )
    4) Does is sound good?
    5) What have reviewers said?
    6) What did my friends think?
    7) Have I read this author before?

    And after that it's pretty much how I feel. Sometimes I'll go a whole week or two reading only ARCs and then I'll not touch them again for weeks as I'll be reading what my friends have been reading or discovering a new author because I closed my eyes and pointed in a bookshop.

    ReplyDelete